Gods read Percia Jackson and the Lightning Thief
by musabbir.noor
Summary: The gods read the future in the point of veiw of a female Percy Jackson. Percia Jackson. Evil Annabeth. Good Luke. Powerful Percia.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Percy Jackson

Chapter 1

_Dear Gods,_

_ We have sent back books on the future. Do not interfere until you read all ten books. _

_The Fates_

"I wanna read first" Apollo whined. Rolling his eyes, Zeus gave the go ahead

**Percia Jackson and the Lightning theif**

Poseidon paled and considered confessing right then and there, but decided not to.

**I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-algebra Teacher**

All the gods started laughing, but Poseidon's laugh sounded fake.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half blood.**

"Good to know." Ares muttered sarcastically.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now.**

**Believe whatever lie your mom or dad has told you about your birth and try to lead a normal life.**

**Being a half blood is dangerous.**

"True," mumbled Poseidon.

**It's scary.**

"Also true," said Poseidon.

**Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful nasty ways.**

"And also tr-" Poseidon started, but Ares snapped, "We know!" Hermes continued.

**If you're a normal kid reading it because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. But if you recognize yourself in these pages - if you feel some thing stirring inside-stop reading immediately.**

**You might be one of us.**

**And once you know that, its only a matter of time before **_**they**_** sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

**Don't say I didn't warn you.** **My name is Percia ****Jackson.**

"Yeah, we could never have figured it out from the title!" Ares mumbled. Aphrodite giggled.

I**'m twelve years old until a few moths ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York. Am I a troubled kid?**

"Yes," Hera muttered. No demigod could be sane after all. Poseidon glared at Hera, and Zeus shot Poseidon a questioning look. Why would Poseidon take offence unless... could it be?

**No not really.**

"Modest much?" Hera said silently to herself.

**Thing started going bad last May, when our class took a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of art to look at ancient Greek and roman stuff.**

"Sounds cool!" Athena examined, excited.

"More like torture." Ares scoffed.

**It sounded awsome.**

The gods all laughed, at Ares expense.

"Never question me, I'm always right." Athena said smugly.

Poseidon meanwhile, was wondering what was wrong with his first daughter.

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip.**

**He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.**

"Hmm… you know, that sounds familiar." Athena murmured.

**You wouldn't think he he'd be cool , but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons.**

"Ah ha!" Athena cried, triumphantly. "It's Chiron!"

"Well," Apollo said. "I already guess that, but-" He stopped as Zeus sent him a warning look, telling him not to compete with Athena.

Athena, who was already taking a different course of thinking. "Why would he take interest in this demigod?" she thought out loud. All eyes fixed onto Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, bullying my friend, Grover.**

"Know Dionysus, please explain, why that satyr is still on duty after he let Thalia die." Zeus asked angrily.

Athena and Hermes, seeing Dionysus's predicament helped out.

"Father, calm down, he got two other demigods to camp safely."

"You would be singing a different tune if ti had been you're child that had gotten killed." Zeus stated with narrowed eyes.

**Grover was a easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back a few grades because he was the only sixth grader with acne and a wispy beard on his chin.**

"Definitely-" Athena began.

**On top of all that he, was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs.**

"-satyr." She finished.

**Lucky him, I hate it when the boys stare at me in my gym out fit.**

Artemis's and Poseidon eyes narrowed.

**He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

There was an awkward silence, then all the gods laughed, besides Zeus and Poseidon.

Zeus was muttering about incompetent satyrs and Poseidon wasn't willing to entrust his daughters safety to an incompetent satyr.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobafit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair.**

"Aw, crap." Apollo pouted. "I wanted to see something good."

Aphrodite shushed him.

"**I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

"Yes!" Ares high-fived Apollo. "He gets suspended, and you get some action. It's a win-win!"

Poseidon growled, but Ares didn't hear.

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter." He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. "That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

"Aw, satyr!" Ares and Apollo whined. "Should've let him go."

"I wonder who his parent is." Athena mumbled, her sharp gray eyes searching the room. Poseidon gulped. Nothing got past Athena.

"**You're already on probation", he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."** **Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.**

"So why didn't you!" Ares complained loudly.

**My punishment would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get my self into.**

Poseidon thought he saw Ares, Hermes, and Apollo sit up straighter, but he couldn't be sure.

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. He rode up in his wheelchair, guiding us though big galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black and orange pottery. **

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on top, a **_**stele**_**, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was interesting but everybody around me was talking, and ever time I told I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperon, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

The gods laughed and Poseidon scowled. That was it. Zeus stood up. "Brother, what is with you? Everytime we laugh at her, you start growling or something!" All the eyes turned on Poseidon. Poseidon shifted uncomfortably. "Nothing. I just, um, er, I think you are being mean to this, this heroic young girl who, who might save the world someday…or something." There was an uncomfortable silence, then Ares clapped and whistled sarcastically. "Nice speech, Abraham Lincoln!" The gods stopped looking at Poseidon and laughed. Poseidon let out a sigh of relief as Hermes started reading again.

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even through she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right in to your locker.**

"Hey!" Ares complained. "She stole my ride!"

**She had come to Yancy halfway through the year when the last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

The gods laughed at the word "breakdown" and Poseidon even managed a weak laugh when Zeus looked suspiciously at him.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy and figured I was devil spawn, besides the fact my record is perfect unless you count her class. **

"Now she knows how I feel about all demigods. They always let you down." Hera muttered. The other gods shot her a glare for insulting their children.

**She would point her crooked finger and say, Now honey, real sweet and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month. One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Yeah, nice hint!" Ares drawled. "Wait a minute…" Hades mumbled to himself. "That sounds kinda like Ale-" He quickly shut up from all the looks he was getting. Poseidon understood immediately, and snarled, "You would do that?" Hades said nervously, "Well, it seems like I did…" The other gods looked confused, but their attention traveled back to Hermes as he started reading again.

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you **_**shut up?"**_

The gods roared with laughter, and even Poseidon laughed silently, shaking his head.

**It came out louder then I meant it to. The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. "Ms. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?" My face was totally red. I said, "No sir."** **Mr. Brunner pointed "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents."**

**I looked at the carving, and answered calmly, ****"That's Kronos eating his kids, sir."**

Zeus and his siblings shivered. They even looked scared.

"**Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied.**

**"And he **_**did **_**this because ..."**

**"Kronos used to be the king of the titans and ruled the world, before he got a prophecy. It for told that his own children would over throw him and take over the world. This resulted in him eating his children in an attempt to defy the prophecy." I finished. **

"That is rather accurate, if I didn't know better I would have mistaken her as my own." Athena said.

Poseidon was having a hard time stifling laughter. She had complemented his daughter. Priceless.

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids"**

The gods laughed, that was on there job applications.

"**And why, Ms. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted!" Ares shouted.

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

"Told you." Ares said to no one in particular.

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

At that, the gods laughed, but Poseidon laughed the loudest.

**I thought about his question. Why would we need this. It'd not like these hero's existed or we were going to meet the monsters. **

"That's actually exactly why you'll need this knowledge." Athena told the book.

**"I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Ms. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

The gods laughed.

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"Guys _are_ doofuses." Artemis said brightly, and Hera grunted in agreement.

"Hey!" Apollo and Hermes said. "Are not!"

Artemis knew better than to get into it with her annoying twin, Apollo, so she just shrugged. But in her head, she said _Is too._

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Ms. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going, not wanting to hold him up. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"They have," Apollo said. "And to me, they've seen too much."

Aphrodite burst into a fit of giggles. "Hey, it wasn't his fault that you were taking a shower! You told him to come at that time. It's not his fault you didn't take one earlier!" She swept her long golden locks behind her ear. Hephaestus stared, while Apollo rolled his eyes.

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

**"Oh."**

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percia Jackson."**

"She's not supposed to know yet, Chiron!" Apollo complained. "And as god of foretelling, I-"

"Shut up." Ares told him.

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

"That's how you train to be a great demigod, dude!" Ares said. "You a wimp?"

Poseidon gnashed his teeth, but before he could do anything, Athena simply made a book appear out of nowhere and waved it in front of Ares's face. Ares screamed. All the other gods laughed. "That didn't count!" Ares complained, but they still kept laughing.

**I mean, I wasn't a bad student. In truth I had never gotten less than a B in any subject. Not even from Ms. Dodds.****  
**

**On top of that it was like he knew something I didn't. and I hated not knowing.**

Poseidon groaned. A mini Athena. His daughter, his first and only daughter, was was a mini Athena. Great.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city.**

Everyone looked at Zeus, who followed their glance and realized they were looking at him. "What? Oh, me? No, I would never…well, okay maybe, but…" Hermes continued.

**I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.**

"Almost the winter solstice." Hades said.

**We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

Now they looked at both Zeus and Poseidon.

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from **_**that **_**school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

Ares, Apollo, and Hermes snickered, but shut up when they got hit on the head by Athena, Artemis, and Hera.

**A couple of the guy's tried to ask me out. **

Poseidon growled.

**Considering that they were either looking at the floor or my chest, I turned them all down.**

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. **

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

Everyone laughed at this.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home.**

The girls "aww"ed while the guys just looked bored. "Talk about girly." Apollo said. He pretended to be Aphrodite and put on a high voice. "Let's talk about love, and feelings, and make-up, and fluffy bunnies!" Apollo said. The guys laughed as Apollo did an imitation of Aphrodite and pretended to flick his hair back. Aphrodite just stood up, walked over, and slapped him.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

"Eeew!" Squealed Aphrodite.

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"Someone should tell her pop, attractive one ya' got there!" Apollo said sarcastically, and all the gods laughed.

**I tried to stay cool, but I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

"A _wave_?" Hades and Zeus snarled, looking at Poseidon. "Oh, Hades…" Poseidon muttered. Hades straightened. "Yes?" Poseidon looked up. "What? No, I meant the other meaning. I'm not actually talking to you." Hades thought about it for a moment, then shrugged.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percia pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

**"—the water—"**

**"—like it grabbed her—"**

Hades and Zeus both marched over to Poseidon's throne. The other gods started whispering. "You broke the oath!" Zeus yelled in his face. "The sacred-"

"So did you!" Poseidon yelled, angry now. "You did it first!"

"What, am I the only one who keeps my word around here?" Hades yelled, but no one listened to him. Everyone's eyes were fixed on Zeus and Poseidon.

"Well, your daughter isn't _nearly_ as great as my daughter was before Hades-" Zeus began, then Hera screamed, "SO YOU STILL THINK ABOUT HER!" The other gods were silent, Zeus was scared and mad, Hera was furious, Poseidon was anxious, and Hades was annoyed that neither of them kept the oath. Hermes began to read again before a war could start.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble.**

The other gods expected Ares to comment again, but even Ares seemed afraid.

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

Ares managed a smile at that.

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. **_**I **_**pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—**_**will**_**—stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "**_**Now**_**."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

The gods smiled, and Ares laughed silently at the last line.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

_Uh oh._ Athena thought.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

"It's not." Athena mumbled to herself.

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel. I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end ****of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

"If there's no one else there, then its bad…" Athena muttered.

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am." Instead of " what problems."**

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

Aphrodite whimpered, and shut her eyes.

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

Everyone looked at Zeus again, but he just shrugged. "Not me." Hades tried to look innocent.

**"We are not fools, Percia Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

"Yes, of course." Athena said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. She was know against complimenting Percia due to her parentage.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"FURY ATTACK!" Apollo yelled, and Aphrodite screamed.

"YOU SENT A FURY? A FURY!" Poseidon bellowed, his trident in his hands, swirling with water.

"Well, yeah! Why not!" Hades yelled back, but his voice was scared.

**"Then things got even stranger."**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percia!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

"Catch it! Catch it!" The girls wailed. Aphrodite looked close to tears. Poseidon kept screaming at Hades, who crouched behind the guest throne.

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear.**

Aphrodite screamed again.

**I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

The girls cheered.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**I kept myself loose and ready to doge, keeping a firm grip on my sword.**

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

**And she flew straight at me.**

Aphrodite screamed again, and the other gods put their hands over their ears, but removed them when Hermes began to read again.

**I side stepped and swung the sword.**

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. **_**Hisss!**_

Aphrodite let out a cry of joy, and Apollo muttered, "Shut up."

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan.**

The gods all laughed at this metaphor.

"Aww, she made a connection to you." Aphrodite squealed.

**She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

"Really? A ballpoint pen?" Dionysus scoffed.

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. **

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

**I said, "Who?"**

**"Our **_**teacher.**_** Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

"The mist." Athena said.

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

Athena sighed. "Oh, young satyr."

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

Everyone looked at Zeus again.

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Ms. Jackson."**

"See, now Chiron can lie." Ares said, and Apollo and Hermes nodded.

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percia, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"And that's the end of that book." Hermes said. "Who goes next?"


	2. Chapter 2

"**Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death,"**

"Death? Say it isn't so!" Apollo said, tossing an Ambrosia square in the air and catching it with his mouth.

"Hopefully, it's not my daughter's death." Poseidon said anxiously.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.**

**This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

"That would be a little disturbing, having everyone around you know this person, when you haven't seen them once in your entire life." Athena said. Everyone agreed that it would be.

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

"Maybe you are psycho, Percia." Apollo said. Poseidon rolled his eyes at him.

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

**Almost.**

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

"Maybe he should take lying lessons from me." Hermes suggested.

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

"Rule number one of lying: Never Hesitate!" Hermes explained.

**Something was going on. Something **_**had **_**happened at the museum.**

"Yeah you were nearly killed by a Fury, but you slashed it with a pen that turns into a sword." Apollo told the book.

"Apollo, I hate to inform you, but you are talking to a book." Athena said.

"Pshh, your point is what exactly?" Apollo replied. Athena didn't reply. "Yeah, that's right." Apollo said smugly.

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

"If I was mortal and I kept having dreams like that, I would be waking up in a cold sweat too." Hera said. Everyone agreed.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

"Okay I get that I might have found out about Poseidon having a kid, but I doubt I would be this angry. There must be something else that we are fighting about." Zeus concluded.

"Yes but what could have us fighting so much?" Poseidon wondered.

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades dropped from there usual A's to B's.**

**I managed to avoid conflict with Nancy though.**

"No!" Ares bellowed.

**I was starting to get homesick though.**

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side,**

"Aww." The goddesses chorused. The gods rolled their eyes.

**even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

Poseidon looked murderous. Everyone scooted away from him as he glared at the book.

"Read." He told Hermes.

**And yet… there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods outside my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange.**

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, I gave a final run down on Latin.**

**I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-or-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

**The evening before my finals, I was certain that I had all the information down. I just needed to be careful with my spelling and hope for the best.****  
**

Athena grudgingly admitted "Poseidon, maybe you're son and daughters are different. Or maybe it just Percia. I don't know but she's smart."

The gods looked shocked that Athena had complemented a child of Poseidon.

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. **_**I will accept only the best from you, Percia Jackson.**_

**This resulted in me going over everything... again.**

"Aww... she wants to impress Chiron" Apollo laughed.

**After going over everything, I decided that a walk would do me some good. I was stressed out. Perhaps I should look for Grover? I walked downstairs, absentmindedly to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said,**

"… **worried about Percia, sir."**

**I froze.**

Apollo gasped dramatically and Hermes said, "I thought eavesdropping was a trait that is in _my _children." Poseidon just rolled his eyes.

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

"Okay, I would lose that bet." Ares said. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

**I inched closer.**

"… **alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the **_**school**_**! Now that we know for sure, and **_**they **_**know too—"**

"**We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the girl to mature more."**

Poseidon glared.

"**But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead line—"**

"Dead line?" Hades asked curiously.

"I think it has something to do with why Zeus and Poseidon are fighting." Athena stated. Everyone looked thoughtful for a minute before turning to Hermes. "Keep reading." They all said.

"**Will have to be resolved without her, Grover. Let him enjoy her ignorance while she still can."**

"**Sir, she **_**saw**_** her… ."**

"**Her imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince her of that."**

"**Sir, I … I can't fail in my duties again."**

Zeus glared at the book for reminding him of what happened to Thalia.

**Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

"**You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percia alive until next fall before taking her to camp half blood."**

"Because that's definitely something I would want to hear." Apollo said.

"Well, obviously, Grover and Chiron don't know that he is listening in on them." Athena explained.

"Still." Apollo said.

**"Ok sir" Grover said in a resigned voice, "do you have any idea who her father is?"**

The throne was tense, the gods at the edge of there seats.

**"I believe it may be Lord Poseidon. It would explain he fury after her, her ability to control water and her eyes." Chiron said.**

**"But sir, Lord Poseidon never had a daughter." Grover protested.**

"Percia's my first." Poseidon said proudly.

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**I proceeded to creep away, not wanting them to be suspicious. Once in my dorm, I neatly packed away before crawling into my bunk and I started to think.**

"Something tells me she isn't going to be able to go to sleep." Athena muttered.

Poseidon gave her a deadpan look.

**With my head under my blankets I carefully considered everything I had heard. **

**Poseidon, the lord of the sea? My father. It didn't seem possible. On that note it explained quite a lot.**

"She's starting to figure it out. Her scents gonna get stronger." Poseidon said worried.

**She went back to her life in order. Things she ignore because what it led down to seemed so insane, simply impossible. **

**Her mom, Sally Jackson said that her father was lost at sea. Not dead, but lost at sea. At first she thought that her mother didn't want to use the word _dead_. It made things to final. Unbendable. **

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me in the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling. Afterwards no one believed that he only had one ye in the middle of his forehead. A cyclops.**

**He then went to words and pieces. _Mist._ Mist is the thin veil of magic that obscures mortal vision. Mortal vision. Mortal. Suddenly it all clicked into place. **

**I was the daughter of a god, probably Poseidon. Poseidon and his brothers don't get a long. That would explain the monster after him. It was a Fury. one of Hades torturers.**

**The weather is most probably a by product of a three way argument between Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon.**

"Dang" Apollo said in awe." she figured all this out with just past experiences, a side conversation, and observation.

Even Athena looked dumbfounded.

**The issue would need to be resolved by the summer solstice. I promised my self to look up the date for said solstice after the exams tomorrow.**

"She is still thinking about the exams" Poseidon asked incredibly. She was putting the importance of a bunch of dumb exams a head of him. It stung a bit.

**But one thing was clear: I was in some kind of danger from both of my ever so caring uncles.**

"Oh you are." Ares said nonchalantly.

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

"That's just torture." Poseidon said. Athena rolled her eyes at him.

**knowing that I had aced it. I even went over it twice. After wards, I looked up Poseidon. Not much that I didn't know.**

**The other girls were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were **_**rich**_** juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of noboies.**

"Well, that's completely true, this one here," Athena said, pointing to Poseidon. "is definitely a nobody." Poseidon rolled his eyes at her.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions.**

"**Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

"Well, at least their nice…" Demeter said.

**They then proceeded to attempt to flirt with me.**

"I take that back." Demeter muttered.

**I proceeded to ignore them.**

Aprodite proceeded to plan out Percia's love life.

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had,**

"Didn't see that coming." Dionysus said sarcastically.

**So there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.**

**Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound. Another point for the I'm a demigod and Greek gods exist theory.**

**Finally I couldn****'t stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"I bet that scared him out of his pants!" Ares yelled, while Apollo said, "Way to go, Percy!" Ares and Apollo high-fived each other. The others laughed at them.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**

"Ugh, you're not supposed to confess!" Hermes said.

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much **_**did**_** you hear?"**

"**Oh … not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

"Don't we all want to know." Zeus said.

**He winced. "Look, Percy … I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers …"**

"Wow he really is a horrible liar." Poseidon stated. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

"**Grover—"**

"**And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and …"**

"**Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

Everyone laughed as Poseidon smiled.

**His ears turned pink.**

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

_**Grover Underwood**_

_**Keeper**_

_**Half-Blood Hill**_

_**Long Island, New York**_

_**(800) 099-0009**_

Dionysus smirked at his little joke. He liked annoying the demigods by putting a font that makes it hard for them to read.

**Half blood could mean demigod.**

**It decided to ask out loud "Does half blood mean demi god?****"**

**"Wh-What," after taking a look at my face he decided to come clean. Smart. "Yah, it does." **

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me.**

"Aww." All the goddesses said.

**And here he was acting like he was the one who defended **_**me**_**.**

**By know though, I knew appearances could be deceiving. **

**He looked crippled, but there was a chance he might be faking. **

"**Grover," I said, "How exactly are you protecting me?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under out feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

"That's ominous…" Apollo said. Poseidon shushed him and Hermes kept reading.

**The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

"I could use some fruit right now." Apollo said.

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

"What are the Fates doing there?" Hades said anxiously. No one answered so Hermes kept reading.

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

"You don't think…" Athena began, but she didn't need to finish because everyone was thinking the same thing.

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

"Great, just great." Poseidon said weakly.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**It instantly put me on guard. Could they be monsters?**

"I wish" Poseidon muttered, his grip on his Trident tightening.

"**Grover?" I said. "Hey—"**

"**Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

"Oh no, oh no." Poseidon said putting his face in his hands. Hestia patted him on the back, trying to comfort him.

"**Yeah. Are they monsters?"**

**The lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears.**

"This is not good. This is _really_ not good." Poseidon said through his hands.

**I heard Grover catch his breath.**

"**We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

"Yes, get back on the bus!" Poseidon exclaimed.

Athena glanced sadly at Poseidon and said. "It won't work, the Fates made the bus break down, the only way for the bus to be fixed is for Percy to witness this." Poseidon groaned.

"**Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I couldn't go. I was fixed in place**

Poseidon groaned again.

**I quickly thought about there appearance and attempted to put a name to them. They weren't Furies. Then I paled. They weren't monsters. They were the Fates. Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear the **_**snip**_** across four lanes of traffic.**

Everyone in the room looked down sadly. They all pretty much liked Percia and didn't want him to die. Even Zeus and Hades.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, and despite the situation, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

Apollo and Hermes smiled.

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

"**Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

Poseidon groaned at the reminder of his daughter's fate.

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

"**Grover?"**

"**Yeah?"**

**"Those were the Fates?"**

**"Yeah"**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older. Must've been the Greek version I thought.**

"It is. That's very observant of him." Athena said.

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

"**Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

"Nah it's no big deal, you'll just die a pre-mature death that most likely will be in a very gruesome way, but that's really not a problem." Apollo said trying to lighten the mood a little. Some of them smiled while others looked gloomy.

"**This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like last time."**

"And it won't." Poseidon snarled, glaring at Zeus and Hades. "Right?"

Zeus and Hades looked at each other then back at Poseidon. "Right." They agreed. Poseidon, satisfied, sat back in his throne and motioned for Hermes to keep reading.

"**What last time?"**

"**Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

"**Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

"He's talking about Tree-girl." Hades said.

"HADES, IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP I WILL BLAST YOU BACK TO THE UNDERWORLD!" Zeus boomed. Hades' eyes flashed with fear and he backed down.

"**Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

"**Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

"**Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

Poseidon put his face in his hands again and groaned. Hestia, once again, tried to comfort him.

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"He probably is." Ares said.

"Well, that was the end of the chapter, who wants to read next?" Hermes said holding out the book.

"_I think Poseidon_

_Should be the one to read next"_


	3. Chapter 3

Poseidon looked at the chapter title and read, **"Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants,"**

Poseidon interrupted himself, "This better not be anything perverted or I swear-" he trailed of.

"Allow me to help you brother," Zeus said eager to cause the satyr pain.

Even the worst of enemies could become bitter rivals given a common enemy.

**After getting of me and Grover got our suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

"**East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world,**

"She really is the best." Poseidon said lovingly.

"Aww." Aphrodite cooed.

"Well you better hope Amphitrite doesn't hear you say that." Zeus said to his brother. Poseidon's smile turned into a frown as he though about what his wife would say.

**Which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

Poseidon's frown deepened.

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for college with a good creative-writing program.**

"Impressive. She sounds really smart." Athena said.

"She is. She is beautiful, smart, and just all around perfect." Poseidon said. Aphrodite wasn't the only one cooing this time.

**Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

Everyone felt sorry for Sally Jackson and hoped that she would eventually get what she wanted in life.

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

Poseidon smiled.

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. Maybe he visited me. Nah, there's no way a sea god could make time for there children. **

"I'm surprised she remembers me visiting him." Poseidon said. He was a bit sad that his daughter had such a lowly opinion of him.

**My dad didn't help out and my mom didn't tell me anything besides him being lost at sea.**

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano,**

"What kind of name is 'Ugliano'?" Apollo asked. Poseidon glared at the book that he was holding. He _hated_ this guy. He couldn't understand why she had married him.

**Who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

Everyone grimaced in disgust.

"That's why she married him," Athena started, "to cover up Percia's scent! She wanted to protect her." Athena finished astounded that someone could be so selfless.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along … well, when I came home is a good example.**

**I left Grover down stairs to act as look out.**

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

"What a pig!" Artemis said in disgust. Hera, Hestia, Demeter, Persephone, and Athena all nodded their heads.

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

"My nephew should be treated better than that!" Hestia said glaring at the book.

"**Where's my mom?"**

"**Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

"What a despicable man!" Demeter said.

**That was it. No **_**Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**_

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

Everyone grimaced in disgust again.

**I doubt Aphrodite could make him handsome.**

"If that description is anything to go buy, I probably couldn't" Aphrodite admitted.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "father-daughter secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

Everyone looked shocked.

"He hits _my daughter_?" Poseidon yelled outraged.

"The pig laid his hand on a maiden" Artemis asked equally enraged.

Everyone was too scared of Poseidon's fury to even try to calm him down. They could tell that down on earth, hurricanes and earthquakes were raging. Finally, Poseidon picked up the book and continued reading.

"**I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

Athena smiled as her theory was confirmed.

"**You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

Poseidon's glare at that moment could send even Kronos running back into the deepest pits of Tartarus.

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

"Well, he is a little better." Hera said.

"**Am I **_**right**_**?" Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

"Men are pigs." Artemis said. All the goddesses agreed.

"**Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

"As do we." Apollo said. Everyone nodded.

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During the school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

Poseidon grimaced as, once again, he was reminded of his son's possible death.

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

Everyone held their breath, hoping that something like that wouldn't happen.

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percia?"**

Everyone let out a sigh of relief as they heard this.

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

"Aww she's so sweet." Aphrodite said.

**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.**

Poseidon smiled lovingly as Sally was described in detail.

**I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

"**Oh, Percia." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central.**

"That does sound good." Hades spoke up. Persephone raised an eyebrow at her husband. "What? Just because I'm the Lord of the Dead, doesn't mean I can't enjoy the smell of candy!" He said.

**She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

"Lucky." Apollo and Hermes said.

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. Was her little girl doing all right?**

"Wow, I wish we had a mother like that." Hestia said. "All ours did was let us be eaten by our father." She said snorting.

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

"Why don't you get your own dip for a change?" Poseidon said angrily.

**I gritted my teeth**

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire,**

"Or a god." The whole room chorused.

**Not to some jerk like Gabe.**

**I explained everything I deemed important, albeit absentmindedly. I was trying to figure out the best way to ask before deciding that the best approach would be the direct one.**

**"Mom was my dad a god" I asked bluntly before going on in detail ****about Mrs. Dodds, who happened to be a Fury, one of Hades torturers, and the three old ladies with the yarn, who happened to be the Fates, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

"And the moment of truth" Hemes said, tension building.

**Throughout the story, my mom was getting steadily paler. "Your father is Poseidon, god of the sea."**

**"I suppose it's time for you to go to camp." It was a statement, not a question. **

"**It is, my satyr protector is downstairs."**

**My mom nodded in understanding. "Camp is a couple miles from Montauk. If you want, we could go. Three nights, same cabin. Afterwards, I'll drive you to camp. It'll give us a sense of closure."**

Poseidon smiled at the fond memories of that cabin.

**"I'd appreciate it."**

**She smiled. "Wait as I get changed."**

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

**I wanted to punch him,**

"Do it!" Ares, Apollo, Hermes, and Poseidon shouted.

**But I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

"Aww." Ares groaned. He was really hoping that there would be a fight sometime soon.

"**I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

"**I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

"He better." Poseidon growled.

"**Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

"She sure knows how to give a man what he needs." Ares said. Aphrodite slapped him upside the head and told Poseidon to keep reading.

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip … it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

Aphrodite gasped and said, "That's… that's just not right!"

"**Yes, honey," my mother said.**

"**And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

"**We'll be very careful."**

"You should crash it, just because he said that." Ares said.

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip … And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

"Oh yeah, because walking into his own house is considered interrupting." Apollo said rolling his eyes.

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

The room erupted in laughter.

"Man Uncle, your kid is awesome!" Apollo said.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

**Why did she put up with this guy?**

"For you." Poseidon said sadly.

**I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

"**I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

Everyone snickered at this comment.

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"**Year, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

"**Thank you, Percia," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about… whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eye. She knew that this could very possibly be the last time they saw each other.**

"She probably did." Poseidon stated.

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car.**

"He should've been the one to carry the bags, not just stand there and watch." Hera said.

**He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

"**Not a scratch on this car, girl," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not on little scratch."**

"Like I said earlier, she should crash the car." Ares said.

"Well it's not like Percia will be the one driving, she's only twelve!" Poseidon said to Ares.

Ares shrugged and said, "She should still do it."

**Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon.**

Everyone laughed as they pictured that happening.

**Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Athena shuddered at the mention of spiders.

**And most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**

**I loved the place.**

"I do too." Poseidon said smiling.

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

"Aw." All the goddesses cooed, while Poseidon smiled.

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

Poseidon smiled fondly.

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"What's with all the blue food?" Hermes asked. Poseidon didn't answer because the answer was explained in the book.

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

"That would be helpful, thanks." Hermes said.

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—**

"That would be an attractive name." Apollo said snickering.

**was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before he parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough to quit the candy shop.**

"**How old was I?" I asked. "I mean … when he left?" **

**I didn't need to explain, she knew who I was talking about.**

"Of course, only a half brain dead fool wouldn't." Athena scoffed.

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percia. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**I nodded that supports the theory my dad didn't care about me.**

Poseidon looked sad.

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember … something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"I did visit her once. Sally has no idea though." Poseidon said pained.

**Through out the exchange, Grover stayed silent. I was thankful for that.**

** That night I had a vivid dream.**

"Hopefully, it's not something bad." Poseidon said, but even as he said it, he knew it would be.

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

"I'm still trying to figure out why both of you would be this angry." Athena said.

**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

"Hades or Kronos?" Hera asked. No one replied.

**I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion.**

"Kronos." Everyone said disbelievingly.

**I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, **_**No!**_

"Well, that was dramatic." Apollo said.

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

**Grover sat bolt right. He took a ****whiff of the air and said in a horrified voice, "Monster."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer, but my dad seemed to have forgotten.**

"Yeah Poseidon, why'd you forget that it's not Hurricane Season!" Apollo said.

**Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

**Grover took of his pants exposing goat legs, knowing he couldn't afford to be slow.**

**My mom grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. **_**Go**_**!"**

"The actions starting!" Ares yelled relieved.

**Grover ran for the Camaro— but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters.**

"That's it." Poseidon said closing the book.

"I think I'll read next." Artemis said holding her hand out for the book. Poseidon handed it to her and she opened it to the next chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

Poseidon Is Going to Kill Someone

Artemis opened the book and began reading, **"My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting,"**

"Well that could mean one of two things," Apollo started, "either they go to Spain and Sally is really a professional bullfighter, or they get attacked by a bull."

"Well, I think I'd know if she was really a professional bullfighter or not." Poseidon said.

**We tore through the night along the dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

**Every time there was a flash of lightning,**

"You better not do anything to harm them." Poseidon said menacingly to his brother.

**I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat he was as terrified as I am. Not very comforting.**

"Some protector" Zeus snorted.

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

"Well, that's not good." Hephaestus said. Everyone glanced at him in surprise because they had all forgotten that he was still here.

**I started making a list of monsters that could be after me. A monster that bellows and obeys Zeus or Hades. What monster?**

"**Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?" Grover said, really anxious.**

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

"They're almost to camp." Poseidon said relieved.

**"How much further."**** I asked.**

**"A few more miles, please."**** My mother's voice was tight.**

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure s****he'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

Poseidon tensed. He hoped nothing happened to Percy and Sally.

"**What was that?" I asked.**

"**We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.**

"**Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

_Yes._ Poseidon thought. _Please let them get there safely._

**I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty coutryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with the pointed teeth and leathery wings.**

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner … and the sword he had thrown me. It would have helped right know. Before I could ask Grover whether or not he had a weapon I could use, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling **_**boom!**_**, and our car exploded.**

"Um, what?" Hermes said, confused.

"It's starting." Ares said ominously.

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

"**Percia!" my mom shouted.**

"**I'm okay…"**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and the rain was pouring in.**

**Lightning.**

"WHAT!" Poseidon yelled, enraged. Poseidon got up to strangle Zeus, but the others quickly stepped in and fought to calm Poseidon down.

"You better be glad they weren't hurt." Poseidon said menacingly. Zeus gulped and hurriedly gestured to Artemis to keep reading.

**That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road.**

**"Thanks a lot uncle" I told the sky mockingly.**

** Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

_Well at least one good thing came from that._ Zeus thought.

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of this mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

"That's sweet." Demeter said smiling.

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

"I would say 'Food' too if I was just struck by lightning." Apollo said. Everyone laughed.

"**Percy," my mother said, "we have to …" Her voice faltered.**

Poseidon groaned, "What now?" he said.

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was dark silhouette of a huge, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

"You sent," Poseidon began, "the Minotaur after my daughter and Sally?" Poseidon yelled at Hades.

"I haven't done it yet!" Hades defended.

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

"**Percia," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

"**Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percia—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

"_**What?**_**"**

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

Zeus looked down, sad, as he was reminded of Thalia.

"**That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

"**Mom, you're coming too."**

Poseidon looked worried, "She won't be able to get over the property line."

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

"**No!" I shouted. "You **_**are**_** coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

"**Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

Apollo and Hermes would've snickered at the satyr's antics, but they realized that this was no time for shenanigans.

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he **_**couldn't **_**be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head … was his head. And the points that looked like horns…**

"Slow." Athena muttered under her breath.

"**He doesn't want **_**us**_**," my mother told me. "He wants **_**you**_**. Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

"**But…"**

"**We don't have time, Percia. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother,**

"You shouldn't be mad at your mother, child." Demeter said.

**At Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

**Like a bull... the Minotaur!**

"It's only half bull." Athena said logically.

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

"**I told you—"**

"**Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

"Like all mothers should." Hestia said.

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through the wet waist-high grass.**

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of **_**Muscle Man**_** magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under the vein-webbed skin.**

"She sure is intelligent, this one." Dionysus said sarcastically.

**He wore no clothes except underwear— I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

"He is still letting the Mist affect him like this?" Persephone asked. Artemis saw that no one was going to reply, so she kept reading.

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

"**Pasiphae's son," my mother said.**

"Good, she knows that names have power." Athena said.

"**I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

"Well that's certainly reassuring. Especially coming from his mother." Hermes said.

"Oh come on! I want them to fight already!" Ares said frustrated.

"So you want my son killed?" Poseidon said. Ares shook his head at Poseidon.

"Artemis, read." He told her.

"**But he's the Min—"**

"**Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

**I made a mental note to never call a monster by it's name. **

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly.**

"Poseidon, your kid sure has a way with words." Hades said. Poseidon rolled his eyes and gestured for the reading to continue.

**More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

"**Food?" Grover moaned.**

"Stupid satyr! Don't give away their position!" Hermes scolded.

**I recalled the myths, the Minotaur went by smell. He'll find us soon.**

"Smart girl." Athena nodded appraisingly.

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Ares yelled punching his fists into the air.

_**Not a scratch,**_**I remembered Gabe saying.**

**Oops.**

"Yes! Take that Smelly Gabe!" Not Apollo, Hermes, or Ares yelled, but Poseidon. Apollo, Hermes, and Ares gave Poseidon a high five. Artemis rolled her eyes and continued reading.

**"Mom****," I said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way—directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. I'm not certain, but it's all I've got.?"**

"_Very_ smart girl." Athena said. Poseidon smiled.

"**How do you know all this?"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.**

Poseidon tensed, hoping that somehow, Percy and Sally got out of this situation alright.

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.**

_Come on, Come on_. Poseidon urged.

"Fight, fight, fight!" Ares started chanting under his breath.

**The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percia!"**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling that we'd all get killed if we don't—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

"Your daughter notices the strangest things." Hera said. Poseidon waved his hand, telling his sister to be quiet.

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt,**

"Wimp." Ares muttered, so as not to be heard by Poseidon.

**But that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

**So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

"What? No!" Poseidon yelled.

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

"**Run, Percia!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

"No!" Poseidon bellowed.

"**Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and I could hear the crack. I knew my mom was dead. She was gone.**

Poseidon sat there in shock for about a minute before he yelled, "YOU!" he roared turning to Hades. "THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"

"Uh oh, he's going to kill somebody." Hermes said.

"Yes! More action!" Ares yelled.

Poseidon jumped on Hades and they began wrestling.

"My bet's on Poseidon." Ares said, placing a golden drachma on the table. The whole room placed bets on who would win this fight. Finally, after many punches and kicks, Poseidon pinned Hades to the ground.

"Alright! I give, I give!" Hades yelled. After the money had been given out to the winners, and Poseidon, still incredibly angry, sitting on his throne. Artemis resumed reading.

"**No!"**

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and kill him too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

"**Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

"I love his insults!" Apollo said laughing.

"**Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all.**

"Ah, so the best kind of ideas." Ares said nodding.

**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that.**

"It never does." Hermes said.

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

"That's pretty impressive, if I do say so myself." Ares said.

**How did I do that?**

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

"Um, gross." Aphrodite said.

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

"I bet that would be the most comfortable feeling in the world!" Apollo said.

"**Food!" Grover moaned.**

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—**_**snap!**_

"I think I've said this before but, Poseidon, your daughter is awesome!" Apollo said and Hermes agreed.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

**Thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under the furry rib cage.**

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

"That was pretty impressive." Athena said. Poseidon beamed at the praise for his son.

**The monster was gone.**

"Aw." Ares said dejected, he had loved all the action in this chapter.

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I'd just seen my mother die.**

Poseidon looked down sadly at the mention of Sally's death.

**I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

"That is so sad." Aphrodite, Demeter, and Hestia said.

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at the ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar—looking bearded man, a young girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's, and a handsome young man, with sandy hair, a nice tan, and mischievous blue eyes.**

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "She's the one. She must be."**

"**Silence, Annabeth,"**

"That's my Annabeth." Athena said shocked.

**The man said. "She's still conscious. Luke bring her inside. Annabeth, take Grover."**

"Luke's my son" Hermes said, proudly.

"A couple in the making." Aphrodite squealed.

"That's it." Artemis said, closing the book.

"I want to read next!" Apollo said taking the book from his sister, who scowled at him.


	5. Chapter 5

"**I Play Pinochle With a Horse," **Apollo read, smirking.

"I'm only half horse, which is called a Centaur!" Chiron said.

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

"That's a strange dream" Athena said.

**I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The handsome boy with sandy blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

"_Your_ son better stay away from _my _daughter!" Poseidon yelled at Hermes.

"Well my son is spoon-feeding your daughter nectar" Hermes defended. Apollo remembered that he was supposed to be reading and continued.

**The next time I woke up, the boy was gone.**

"She misses him, how cute." Aphrodite exclaimed.

"She does not" Poseidon protested. Percia was his first daughter, as such, he was very protective over her.

**A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them- on his cheeks, his forhead, the backs of his hands.**

"I'd say there's a bit more than a dozen." Hermes said.

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at the green hills in the distance.**

"Ah, nature." Demeter said fondly.

**The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion hand been using it for a nest.**

"So a very pleasant feeling!" Apollo said.

**My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.**

"Mmm, sounds good." Hermes said.

**My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.**

"**Careful," a familiar voice said.**

**Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.**

"He probably hasn't." Chiron said.

**Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. **

"**You saved my life," Grover said. "I… well, the least I could do … I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."**

**Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

**Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. **

"**The Minotaur," I said.**

"Ignorant girl, doesn't he remember what his mother told him about names?" Dionysus said.

"**Urm, Percia, it isn't a good idea to call him by the name." Grover told me nervously.**

**I nodded, remembering my mom told me not to call monsters by there name.**

"And he keeps on saying it." Dionysus said shaking his head.

**Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"**

"**My mom. Is she really …"**

**He looked down.**

**That was all the answer I needed.**

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with a huge pine tree on top.**

Zeus grimaced at the reminder.

**Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**

**My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

Poseidon nodded in agreement.

"Even me? I can't look beautiful?" Aphrodite said sadly.

"**I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm—I'm the worst satyr in the world."**

"I'll say." Zeus muttered.

**He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

"**Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

**Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

**I was alone. An oprphan. I would have to live with … Smelly Gabe?**

"I think she'd rather be a hobo, than live with Smelly Gabe." Hera said. Everyone agreed.

**No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.**

"How would he manage to pull off being seventeen?" Ares asked. No one answered so Apollo kept reading.

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid—poor goat, satyr, whatever—looked as if he expected to be hit.**

"Well he should be." Zeus said. Demeter glared at him.

"You need to get over it." She said.

**I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

"Aw, he's sweet." Aphrodite said.

**I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.**

"**Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

**I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies—my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting.**

"That sounds really good." Hermes said.

**Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

The goddesses smiled.

**Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

"**Was it good?" Grover asked.**

**I nodded.**

"**What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

"**Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."**

"Yeah you should've let him taste, if you wanted to murder him." Ares said.

**His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just… wondered."**

"**Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Home made."**

**He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

"**Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

"**That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff."**

"**What do you mean?"**

**He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

"Oh _I'm_ in this story." Dionysus said.

"This will be good." Ares smirked.

**The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

"Yeah, I wouldn't either." Hermes said.

**As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

**We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture:**

**An open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena; except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

"Ah, the Pegasus." Poseidon smiled fondly.

"This sounds like heaven." Apollo said, "why do you hate it so much?" He said to Dionysus.

"The little brats are annoying." Dionysus concluded.

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired boy who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

**The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.**

Dionysus was furious. "How _dare_ she insult me in that way! I thought she would be one of the less annoying ones, but no my expectations are always trampled upon!" Dionysus burst out. Everyone was laughing at Percy's description of Dionysus.

**He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties,**

"Oh, that's harsh, Percy!" Apollo said as Dionysus glared at the book.

**Except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step father.**

"**That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The boy, that's Luke Castellan.**

Aphrodite was planning how to make them a couple.

**She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron…"**

**He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.**

**First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

"**Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

"He's in for a shock." Apollo said laughing.

**The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers **_**B**_**.**

"You _would_, Chiron." Hermes said.

"**Ah, good, Percia," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."**

**He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

"I will never be glad to see this Peter." Dionysus said.

"**Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, **_**if**_** there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

"Well Dionysus has never had a drop of alcohol! What a strange, silly little satyr!" Apollo said. Dionysus glared at Apollo, while everyone snickered.

**"Luke?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond boy.**

**He came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young man nursed you back to health, Percia.**

**Luke, my boy, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin three."**

**Luke said, "Sure, Chiron."**

**He was probably a couple years older than me and a lot taller, and a whole lot more athletic look.**

**Then he left.**

"**So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**

"**Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said.**

"Your daughter sure has a way with words." Zeus said.

"**I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."**

**I nodded. My ex latin teacher was the trainer of heroes. Great.**

**I looked at the director. "And Mr. D … does that stand for something?"**

"I think I see the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Percy and Dionysus." Hermes said.

**Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

"Sure Dionysus, whatever you say." Apollo said.

**I filed away that there are others besides monsters that your not supposed to use names for.**

"**Oh. Right. Sorry."**

"**I must say, Percia," Chiron broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."**

"**House call?"**

"**My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to … ah, take a leave of absence. It seems he was right, daughter of Poseidon."**

**I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

"**You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

**Chiron nodded. "Y****ou made it here alive, and that's always the first test."**

"Not being killed by a monster would certainly do that." Hermes said.

"**Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"**

"**Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

Dionysus' eyes were on fire.

"I'm going to kill that little brat!" He said.

Poseidon glared at him and said menacingly, "You won't touch him."

**I decided to work with what I had. His name probably started with a D, he wore stuff with tigers on them, and was a wine fanftic. That brings us to Dionysus. My eyes widened as I realized that I was in front of a god. I made a note to watch what I say. **

Dionysus smirked.

"**I'm sure you've already figured this all out." Chiron stated.**

**I nodded in confirmation.**

**"Any questions." **

**"Not at the moment.**

**Chiron nodded.**

**"I would have Grove give you a tour, but first we must discuss you're less than satisfactory performance in another assignment."**

"The goat gets fired" Zeus cheered.

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**

"**Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

"Aw. Such a sweet boy." Aphrodite cooed.

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job.**

"I do." Dionysus said.

**"I suppose I'll have to give you the tour." Chiron decided, rising. **

"**What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**

"I think I want to read." Zeus said. Everyone looked at him, shocked, they had thought that he wasn't really interested in the book. Zeus took the book from Poseidon and opened it to the right page.


End file.
